Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I assure my hon. Friend that I am currently working on what we need to do to ensure that the Brighton mainline, which has not had investment over the years, is capable of meeting the challenges of the future. We are spending far more money on our rail network today than has been spent for decades. The Brighton mainline has been neglected, which is one reason why performance has been so poor, and that is something that we have to change and will.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

It is interesting that the Secretary of State criticises the fact that there are not enough drivers and explains how more drivers are being recruited. Chris Gibb said in his report:

“I understand that at least one losing bidder…had too many drivers in their bid…but it may have been the case that the bidder with the fewest drivers won.”

It is complete nonsense for the Secretary of State to indicate that he did not realise the company won the contract with fewer drivers. Surely he must recognise that.

[Chris Grayling]

Actually, I was not Secretary of State at the time. The hon. Gentleman says that I should have known, but what I am trying to do is to sort out the problems we have now. I have made it absolutely clear that we do not have enough drivers on this railway—there is no dispute about that—which is why we have launched a big recruitment drive. I wish those drivers were coming on stream now but, as those with union links know, it takes 14 or 15 months to train a driver. I do not think that is sensible, and it should not take that long. That is something we have to address for the future, but we are bringing new drivers on stream as rapidly as we can, within the confines of union agreements.

On Chris’s recommendations, we are doing a variety of things to deal with the problems on this railway, but we should not forget the core issue. Chris Gibb’s main finding—and, yes, there are things for the Department, the train company, Network Rail and others to learn from the report—is that the principal cause of the disruption last year, which caused misery to so many people, was the action of the trade unions. Let us make no mistake, it is the union executives who call strike action and call disputes, and they are the ones who can call it off.

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[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree. On the pay deal, what I find particularly baffling is that ASLEF is now balloting for industrial action on a 24% pay rise, including productivity changes, that it has accepted on the Thameslink and Great Northern routes. If it is not a political intervention, why would it accept the deal in one part of the company and threaten strike action in the other? Most of us now look at the situation—with the railway line getting better, with things on the mend and with a deal that most people would say is generous and that the union has accepted in the other part of the company—and ask why on earth it is now returning to industrial action.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Why can the Secretary of State not publicly say to both unions and the trade operator, “Let’s meet together, with no preconditions, to negotiate this”? That is what happened with ScotRail, so why does the Secretary of State always want to meet the unions separately? Do it together and do it now!

[Chris Grayling]

We had very constructive talks earlier this year, and I want to pay tribute to the leadership of ASLEF for the way they conducted themselves back in the January and February negotiations. It is a disappointment to me now that they appear to have returned to militancy, when I thought a constructive dialogue was taking place. Those talks happened, and they were facilitated by the general secretary of the TUC and by a senior rail executive. An agreement was reached but, sadly, it did not pass the referendum. A further offer is on the table for staff. That offer of change combined with a substantial pay upgrade and productivity improvements has been acceptable to the union on Thameslink and Great Northern. It is a huge disappointment that that cannot deal with this issue once and for all.

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[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I congratulate you on your elevation, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I am staggered that now, 18 months later, the Southern rail dispute is still going on. I find it staggering for a range of reasons, some of which are alluded to in the Chris Gibb report, which I will come on to. I remind Members that it was a resilience report; it was not about the dispute, but was a resilience report looking at Southern rail generally.

On driver-only operation, I appreciate that the unions talk about safety—which is fine; they are perfectly entitled to do that—but there are three key reasons why I disapprove of DOO. First, many female passengers in Eastbourne have contacted me over the last year as I have been campaigning against this dispute and trying to find a resolution, saying, “Stephen, we would not feel safe coming back to Eastbourne late in the night or even early-evening if we were in an empty carriage on our own and knowing there was no second member of staff.” That is a very important point, because effectively it discounts about 50% of the population.

Secondly, in Eastbourne a lot of local children go to St Richard’s school in Bexhill, and many parents have told me that they would be anxious if they knew their children were on a train with no second member of staff. Thirdly, as has been mentioned by Labour Front-Bench Members, there is the issue of disability access. Only a couple of weeks ago, a wheelchair-user colleague at Hampden Park in Eastbourne had to sit on the platform as three trains went through because she could not get on.

Those are three powerful reasons why I am fundamentally against DOO. I do not accept the principle and I do not care if 30% of the rail network already carries driver-only trains.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman has explained why he thinks a second member of staff is important. Does he accept that 98% of trains are running with that second person on board and that the alternative for the 2% that are not is that those trains do not run at all?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I agree, and I will address that when I turn to the Gibb report, but I wanted to say something else before getting on to it. If we asked members of the public around the country where they have DOO—outside the underground, as that is a different kettle of fish—whether they would prefer to have a second member of staff on the train, I bet they would say that they would.

The Gibb report identified GTR as being the worst performing operator in the country, with performance deteriorating two or three years before the current industrial dispute. I grant that the report identified industrial relations as being a primary cause of the system’s breakdown, but that featured on only one page of the entire 163-page document. That leads me to wonder just how impartial Gibb was in putting together the report. After all, while doing so he apparently spoke with GTR over 30 times and Government agencies over 45 times, yet he spoke with the two unions zero times. What is going on here?

When GTR won the contract direct attention was given in it to “best price”, rather than deliverability. Extraordinarily, that meant GTR winning without enough drivers. Gibb himself wrote:

“I understand that at least one losing bidder”

included more drivers and that

“it may have been the case that the bidder with the fewest drivers won”.

In other words, it was about cost; it was not about quality or customer care. So it was nonsense for the Secretary of State, who unfortunately has left the Chamber, to say earlier that he is trying to train more drivers and that he wants more train drivers. Frankly, the original contract was won by GTR on cost, with fewer drivers than its competitors.

Who is actually leading in the Southern rail dispute, from the rail perspective? Is it GTR and Southern rail, or is it the Government?

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Gentleman was an MP during the time when the contract was being let, while many of us were not. Did he not raise these questions and make these points at the time?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I certainly did! I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention and I thank her for reminding me that I was furious about Southern rail at the time. I thought it was absolute rubbish, and I said so frequently. I appreciate her allowing me to remind everyone about that. And it is good to be back; thank you.

Let me go back to the question of who is actually leading for Southern rail in the dispute, and to the Gibb report. Gibb says that the Secretary of State is

“already determining the strategic direction of this dispute”.

As I said earlier, I am not sponsored by the RMT. Members on both sides of the House know that the Government are behind this dispute because they want to bring in DOO. That is as plain as the nose on your face. Yes, at the minute, there is a second member of staff on 97% of the trains, as another Member said, but that was not the intention at the beginning. The intention was to break the RMT and to bring in DOO. My priority is the customer—the rail passengers of Eastbourne who have suffered so much. This is frustrating because the Government went into this ready to have a war. They were ready to have a battle and to beat the RMT, but they have ended up with a complete stalemate in which the two sides have dug in and the passengers, people and communities of Eastbourne and the south-east are suffering.

[Ms Ghani]

rose—

[Stephen Lloyd]

I will not give way. I am about to finish.

This is ridiculous, and it is about time that the Government and the Secretary of State showed some leadership. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), is in his place, so I shall ask him two questions before I finish. First, will the Government confirm or deny that the Department for Transport has never interfered with or blocked the resolution of the Southern rail dispute? I am asking the Minister that specific question in the Chamber because he has the full responsibility to answer it truthfully, and I will ask it again. Will he confirm or deny that the DFT has never interfered with or blocked the resolution of the Southern rail dispute?

My second question relates to something that a couple of other colleagues have already said, but it is crucial. If the Government are serious about ending this dispute, to the benefit of the entire south-east as well as those in my constituency, why will they not host negotiations with both the unions? We know that they have had opportunities to do that, but they have not done so. They are trying to divide and rule. I say this: Minister, pick up the phone tomorrow and say to Mr Whelan at ASLEF, to Mr Cash at the RMT and to GTR, “I want you to meet me tomorrow in my office in Whitehall. I want all the unions and all the sides together with no preconditions.” I am absolutely certain that if the Government had the guts, and the honesty, to do that, we would resolve the issue within a week. Minister, I wait to hear your answer.

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[Paul Maynard]

I am glad that my hon. Friend mentioned that. It was indeed a manifesto commitment, and it is my personal crusade. I am determined to ensure that we bring it in, partly because of what I have seen for myself in dealing with the issues on Southern. I have had meetings today and—as they always say at the Dispatch Box—I will have further meetings in due course. I believe that this proposal is on track, and we hope to deliver it as soon as possible. I am sure that it will be welcomed across the House.

We have talked about some of the wider pressures on the network. The £300 million investment that we announced in January was a specific response to many of Mr Gibb’s recommendations, but I recognise that more will be needed. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), who spoke for the Scottish National party, asked about the speed with which it would be spent. We made it clear from day one that it would be spent up to the end of control period 5—that is, until December 2018. That money is being spent at the moment, in addition to the £20 million he referred to. It is, for example, being spent on replacing old tracks, points and signalling. That is not just a matter of replacing bits of old kit; it will result in 15% fewer delay minutes and a more reliable and resilient railway.

There are other examples. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) showed interest in high output ballast cleaning, and I can happily share with him that that is about replacing the ballast on the track. One might think that it is just a matter of cosmetics—not at all. Not only does it provide a smoother journey, but it reduces the number of temporary speed restrictions that increase perturbation on the network and make it harder to adhere to the timetable. Some £17 million has been spent on vegetation clearance, which may also appear to be a matter of cosmetics, but two of the five most recent incidents in the last control period that caused significant delays were due to trespassing. There is a clear link between vegetation management and the likelihood of trespassing on the railways, and that causes delays on the railways.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) mentioned the Uckfield electrification. We are well aware of that project, and we are looking at it closely to ensure that we have the best possible business case. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes referred to BML2, and I know that the Secretary of State has met with the group and is urging it to carry on its work. Others have mentioned issues at stations. A particular finding about Victoria of Mr Gibb’s is that we need single station leadership, much like that being developed at London Bridge. A problem at stations is when train operating companies and Network Rail are all trying to make different decisions at the same time. We need single station leadership at our major termini.

We also recognise—I recognised it on day two at the Transport Committee—that the number of drivers at the start of the franchise was inadequate. We needed to understand why that was. Some of it was down to unexpected departures—fine—but I wanted to be clear about what procedures the Department had in place to ensure that any franchise handover involved adequate driver numbers. I am delighted that we now have over 322 drivers in training across the GTR network, but it takes 18 months to train a driver adequately with the route knowledge they need to operate safely on the network. I look forward to those drivers being part of the GTR network, reducing the reliance upon overtime and reducing the impact of any ASLEF overtime ban.

As we have heard, performance has been significantly better when we have not been facing industrial action. Back in December, it was as low as 62% on the PPM measure, but it is now at 82.5%. That is positive, but it came about only because so many of Mr Gibb’s recommendations have already been put in place. Many people referred to the benefits of smart ticketing. I constantly urge GTR to do more with its key and keyGo smart cards, and I look forward to that benefiting constituents, particularly those in Lewes, soon.

The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) mentioned the Thameslink programme, and my understanding is that many journeys on the East Midlands Trains franchise will be significantly shorter due to the new Thameslink timetable. That is why Mr Gibb is continuing in his role for the Department and is looking at the Thameslink readiness board, ensuring that all the different actors work together in that complex interaction, which will deliver a significant enhancement to the railway. I look forward to sharing more information with the hon. Lady. Mr Gibb’s willingness to chair the Thameslink readiness board is a sign that an approach to rail where we use expert knowledge and bring it to the table ensures that both Network Rail—many Opposition Members seem to forget that it is publicly owned—and train operating companies point in the same direction and have aligned incentives. She also briefly talked about level crossings, which I take seriously. We must ensure that the Law Commission proposal does what it seeks to achieve, but we also want to address safety around level crossings more widely—not just how we close them more quickly.

We will continue to do all that we can to try to bring an end to the dispute. We have no magic wand, but some evidence that a resolution can be reached is that ASLEF and GTR met for 32 days and managed to reach agreement on two occasions. That proves that things can be done without a Minister having to sit in the room. They are actually grown-ups, and they can reach agreement.

[Stephen Lloyd]

rose—

[Paul Maynard]

I am afraid that I have already given way.

In conclusion, a lot has gone on already, but there will be a lot more to do. There is far more to do to ensure that all passengers get the timely, punctual and reliable service that they deserve on this railway. My Department will work hard to ensure that that happens. I thank everyone for their participation today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway.